


Morsmordre

by Minor_Coon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Female Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22523269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minor_Coon/pseuds/Minor_Coon
Summary: Walburga Black knows her destiny: marry well, birth early, and die for the greater glory of the house Black. Thomasina Riddle, that upstart mudblood, has nothing to do with it.
Relationships: Walburga Black/Tom Riddle
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Morsmordre

1.

If Walburga has a desire, it is one she draws out only at night, in the dark privacy behind her bed hangings – that the House Black will be greater for her having lived.

Thomasina Riddle is small, but her eyes are large, insolent, widened in obscene awe as she stares up at Hogwarts castle, taking in everything with her greedy gaze, as if she has some right to it. Walburga sniffs and turns back to the cohort already forming obediently behind her, forgetting the way the girl’s pale face had gone even paler when Walburga booted her from the train wagon, the way those wide eyes narrowed into lightless slits.

Then the Sorting Hat calls out Slytherin, and when the girl stands, she meets Walburga’s eyes with a small smirk. At that moment, Walburga vows to make her life hell. Riddle is poor, an orphan and a mudblood. No one wants her taint. Walburga has the other girls tear holes in Riddle’s already patched robes, misplace her books, and over-salt her food. Riddle says nothing of the treatment, but each day she comes to class with her robes seamless and tidy, her books laid out neatly on the table. Tormenting her becomes a boring ordeal, with little satisfaction gained for effort spent, and in the end only Walburga persists, a jabbing comment here, a shove there, pumpkin juice spilled over the three-foot essay that Riddle has labored on all night. 

In the end, one of the prefects takes Walburga aside to tell her that while he understands her feelings completely and would not dream of telling the Black heiress what to do, that mudblood orphan does have a talent for earning them points and really, isn’t this all a bit beneath her? 

So at the close of her first year, Walburga forgets Riddle, never imagining that Riddle has not forgotten her. 

2.  
This is second year, in the common room. Malfoy, Avery and Black hold court from the arm chairs that flank the fire. Thomasina Riddle sits nearby, her nose deep in a book. She is sitting too close, the common room is over-warm, and the air holds the texture of a storm about to burst. 

“If you're going to sit there, Mudblood,” Abraxus calls out, “you might as well make yourself useful and polish my shoes.”

For him, this passes as a witty remark, and a few obliging chuckles rise from the back of the room.

Riddle closes her book. The watchers grow alert, sensing a reckoning around the corner. The mudblood has outrun punishment for too long. “Why don't we take this outside, Malfoy,” she says in her curiously flat voice. “I don't think you'll want an audience.”  
Knocked off balance for only a moment, Abraxus shares a grin with Orion and hops up from his seat. “Right you are,” he says. “Good of you to see that. Don't worry, we'll make it quick.”

They file out, Riddle first, Malfoy, Black, Avery, with Lestrange and Nott picking up the tail – the Big Five, as they like to call themselves – the third year boys who rule the Slytherin dorms. 

An hour passes. The common room doesn't empty. As the second hour draws to a close, a few murmurs start to pick up here and there. “Just what have they done to her?' “Last thing we need is to be docked points after Goyle's mishap.” “Old Sluggie might not look the other way this time. He's obsessed with that mudblood's potioneering.”

The door swings open quite suddenly, and Riddle steps in. She looks unbruised and unruffled, casting the assembled room a faint, amused smile before crossing the floor to settle in the armchair Malfoy vacated. Nobody says anything, but the silence is still and tense, like an in-drawn breath. The Big Five trickle in slowly, passing by Riddle without saying a word. Abraxus looks pale as a corpse. 

Riddle reads for thirty more minutes, then packs up her books and heads to bed. 

She is not called mudblood again.

3.

“Lace me,” Walburga calls out as she stands in front of her bedside mirror, corset hanging loose from her shoulders. The cool air brings up goosebumps on her back. There’s a long pause, and then Riddle steps out like a shadow. 

“You require assistance?” Riddle says in her low drawl, in her frustratingly level voice.

Walburga is surprised into an answer. “I thought you were Alexia.” 

“Rosier left five minutes ago. “

Flighty girl, Walburga curses. She’ll make Alexia regret ditching her later. For now she needs to get herself dressed. Another ten minutes and she’ll have passed fashionably late.

Walburga is surprised when Riddle draws up behind her, one hand reaching out to fiddle with the laces. “I have no experience,” she says, “but this doesn’t look terribly hard.”

“On with it, then,” Walburga snaps, finding herself uneasy. She doesn’t speak to Riddle and Riddle doesn’t speak to her. The orphan’s no longer ostracized these days. It’s even considered in bad taste to call her mudblood to her face since she'd taken up with the Gang of Five.

Walburga supposed Riddle fit in well enough with them. With her hair cut so short, she could almost be a boy, and she certainly made no efforts to show herself otherwise: never a hint of make-up or a scent of perfume, and her robes remained worn and second-hand.

All the same, Walburga has to admit that Riddle could not be considered dowdy. The girl is blessed with natural looks – her pale skin smooth, her hair glossy and dark, her lips naturally a deep red, with a rather becoming curve. The boys were noticing, Walburga knows, but they had the good sense to avoid an entanglement with a girl of such questionable origin.

Walburga gasps as Riddle tugged suddenly.

“Too tight?” the girl asks. Walburga can see her reflected in the mirror, her lips curved into a small smirk.

“Of course not,” Walburga answers, and braces herself as Riddle moves up her back, fingers working swiftly.

“I’ve often wondered why you wear such things,” Riddle says. “All this unnecessary constraint.”

“The price we pay for beauty, Riddle,” Walburga gets out through clenched teeth as another unexpected tug robbed her of breath. 

“Is that beauty? Tied and pinioned like a turkey bird on a platter? All ready to be served up?”

Walburga doesn't answer. Riddle finishes the laces at the top and then ran her hands down Walburga’s back, checking her handy-work. 

“You looked quite beautiful last Thursday, during defense,” Riddle said quietly. She steps away and vanishes as quietly as she had first appeared.

Last Thursday. When Orion had caught her with a spell before the count of three finished and she’d been sent flying across the room. She’d been furious, face flushing red at the indignity, and before she could think she’d torn through his shielding and bound him in thick, gray ropes that dug into his skin so hard the red lines hadn’t faded for days.

Beautiful?

She strides down the hall, her back tingling.

4.

Riddle comes back from the summer transformed. Her robes are the same hand-me-downs, but the figure beneath them isn't. 

The rumor shoots through Slytherin that Abraxus is preparing to make her a proposal. Walburga's slaps the first girl who brings it up and tells her to watch her mouth, but she can't deny Abraxus' pitifully besotted looks. 

Walburga finds Riddle on the Astronomy Tower. A strong wind is blowing in through the ajar window. “Is it true that Abraxus means to propose?” Walburga asks, because there is a time for subtlety, but it is not now.

“He hinted at it,” Riddle says, not turning. “But I made it clear that wouldn't be fitting at all.”

Walburga blinks, taken aback. It had not crossed her mind that Riddle would be the one to bring this farce to an end. Anyone in her lowborn shoes should have jumped at the opportunity to rise.

“Well, that's,” Walburga stammers, unable to land on the words. “That's very decent of you, Riddle.”

Finally, Riddle turns. And Walburga sees it – sees what might compel Abraxus to this insanity. Riddle's hair billows out in a dark, turbulent mass. Magic clings to her like a second skin, an undeniable, electric quality that sets the air around her alive.  


The strangest thing is in that moment Walburga truly, sincerely believes that if Riddle were to turn and step off the tower, she would fly.

5.

They’re friends, these days, or at least, they sit together at the Slytherin table and do their homework together outside on balmy May days. So it’s not so strange when Riddle says from behind a fallen lock of hair, a bead of sweat running down her bared neck as she bends over her Arithmancy essay, “You’re still cross with Orion, aren’t you? So why don’t we go to Slughorn’s party together. You won’t have to reconfigure everyone’s marriage plans that way, and I won’t have to deal with Avery leering and Malfoy trying to find an inconspicuous method of murdering him.”

“Logically reasoned as ever, Riddle,” Walburga answers, because Orion really has been atrocious lately. “I think that arrangement would suit both our needs.” 

They dress side by side, the only sound the swish of silk robes and the clink of Walburga’s jewels, because even if this isn’t a date, she’s still going to be seen, and she can’t look anything other than perfect. 

She doesn’t look at Riddle until they’re out in the corridor and when she does it’s hard to keep her face blank. Riddle’s dress is a deep absinthe green, fitted for once to the curves of her body. Walburga drags her eyes away, up to Riddle’s face, where her eyelashes seem somehow longer than usual, delicate spider’s legs brushing against smooth skin. 

“Trying to impress tonight?” Walburga says. Her tone misses the mark, sincere rather than snide. 

“You tell me,” Riddle answers, wandlessly summoning a crown of marigolds to drape over Walburga’s head, while Walburga stands, rendered still and silent by the sudden, dazzling burst of magic.

They certainly make an entrance, the two of them—all heads turn, eyes pop wide, and Walburga is satisfied to see the crestfallen look on Orion’s face. She pointedly averts her gaze from him and stays standing with her expression proud and aloof, while Slughorn delightedly interrogates Riddle.

“We came together, Professor,” Riddle is saying, “Don’t you agree, Sir, that none of the boys here are fit to be seen with Walburga,” which sends Slughorn hooting and raining down complements on the both of them. 

“You clean up nice, Riddle,” a Gryffindor calls out as they make the rounds. Walburga eyes him dubiously. A quidditch player, she recalls vaguely, all brawny muscles and blue eyes, but a pureblood at least, or she would have hexed him for his impudence.  
Riddle smiles demurely and thanks him in a soft voice, the dangerous edge all sanded off. When he asks, he receives her hand and Walburga watches as Riddle is swept away. She dances well, gracefully, the turns of the dance showing off the long, elegant lines of her body, and Walburga is too transfixed to notice Orion coming up to her—he’s conjured some flowers (not wandlessly, though, not Orion) and she’s got to dance with him now, hasn't she? 

But Riddle is back at her side, taking Walburga's arm and saying, still in that soft, but newly warning tone, “I’m sorry, Black, but Walburga promised this one to me.” 

Orion’s grin is puzzled, but he backs off. Walburga has noticed this more and more around Riddle these days, a strange kind of deference by the Slytherin boys. She’s struck by the absurd thought that if she asked, Riddle would duel Orion for her and win. Absurd, but oddly appealing. She’s seen Riddle duel a few times and she’d liked what she had seen. Riddle dueling was all the grace of Riddle dancing, only with an added energy, a crackling power.

She feels it now, as Riddle pulls her into a sudden spin and then close, so their faces are flush. 

“Missing Orion?” Riddle murmurs.

Walburga laughs – the sound is sharp, not suiting her demeanor at all. There's a reason Walburga avoids laughter. She's never been able to muster that tinkling bell giggle that was the favored weapon of most society girls. 

“I'd rather dance with you,” she says honestly, watching Riddle's eyes grow bright and satisfied. 

Riddle smiles and this time there is nothing demure about it. Her face moves closer and Walburga wonders if Riddle means to kiss her here, in the middle of the dance floor. It would make a horrific scandal.

“Nobody is watching us,” Riddle whispers into Walburga's ear, warm breath ghosting against her cheek. “I've made sure of it.”

Walburga sees it now – the thin bubble surrounding them – notice-me-not charms, performed wandlessly and wordlessly. She's robbed of breath again by the casual way Riddle throws around her power. 

“So if you have any inclination towards impropriety,” Riddle continues, “now would be the ti– ”

Walburga cuts her off. Riddle's mouth is hot and sweet and her hands dig harshly into Walburga's back as her tongue swipes across Walburga's lips and forces her way inside.

Then, all at once, the heat is gone. Walburga is left standing in the middle of the dance floor, flushed and gasping for air. Riddle watches a foot removed, her expression smug. And Orion steps up to her, oblivious to it all. She falls into step besides him automatically, her body carrying out the movements of the dance with trained precision, aware the whole time of Riddle's gaze and the horrible pounding of her racing heart. 

6.

Riddle doesn't ask, the first time she slips between Walburga's bed hangings, and Walburga never offers, but she pulls Riddle against her wordlessly, and nothing else needs to be said. 

One morning she wakes to find Riddle still besides her. She's taken Walburga's arm in her hands and is tracing some sort of pattern against Walburga's bare skin. 

“What is it that you want, Walburga?” Riddle asks. 

“A healthy and powerful son,” she replies automatically. It's the kind of answer that would win her an approving nod from her mother, but Riddle's mouth goes flat. 

“People say children are a kind of immortality.” Riddle continues to trace a pattern against Walburga's skin as she speaks. “But that's wrong. There's nothing after death. It doesn't matter who lives after you, because you won't be there to see it.”

“That's not so,” Walburga blurts out, before she can consider the wisdom of contradicting Riddle. “If people know your name and don't forget it – if you've brought honor to your house then you do live on, you do!” She's speaking faster than she should, flushed, almost feverish.

Riddle stares at her like she's had a revelation. “Do you want _glory_ , Walburga?” she asks, rolling the word on her tongue. 

“Glory for the House Black,” she corrects.

Riddle laughs at her, high and cold. “Walburga Black. You liar. I think it's time I told you a little secret.”

An hour later, her skin is burning, and their dorm room blazes green.

7.

The proposal is not a week old when Riddle returns. She is dressed in dark traveling robes and the weak candlelight catches red on her eyes. 

“Me or your precious duty,” she hisses. “Choose.”

Walburga falters. Her mind jams shut and her mouth moves, saying something, saying surely she can have both, a husband and a lord, loyal, wed to a loyal spouse, producing loyal children, saying surely that’s in Riddle’s interest as well as her own—

Riddle captures her lips like a striking snake, her eyes open and unblinking. Like poison, Walburga thinks, as Riddle murmurs against her mouth, “Choose.” 

As if there's any choice at all, when Riddle winds them together, one hand on her cheek, the other caressing the burnt-in marking on her upper arm, promising pleasure, promising pain.

“You!” Walburga shouts. “Always you!”

Riddle’s smile when she retreats is dark and amused, and there is something unbearably cold in her eyes. 

“So be it,” she says, raising her wand high. 

Walburga stands, puzzled but obedient, as Riddle completes a complex spell. She doesn't recognize the invocations. And then Walburga is overtaken by intense pain, worse even then the cruciatus curse; it originates in her belly, hard and compressed, spreads up through her, and then ceases abruptly. Walburga sways, feeling empty and somehow hollowed out.

“What did you do to me?” she asks, her voice lifting in panic, because she can feel the unsettled swirl of her magic.

“Merely removed any incentive to go back on your choice,” Riddle says. There is that small smirk playing again on the corner of her mouth, lovely and cruel, so goddamned pleased with herself. 

All at once, Walburga understands that she will have no children. 

She apparates away. In dazed, jerky movements she pens Orion a polite letter explaining that the engagement must be terminated, as she has recently discovered the unfortunate fact of her own infertility. Then she curls up on her bed, as the Black family tree glares down at her in judgment, and weeps.

It is past midnight when Riddle comes to her, when she has long sobbed herself dry. Riddle places a chaste kiss to her forehead and whispers, “Freedom and glory, Walburga. Not for your ancestors, not for your children. Here and now, for you.”

“You’re a monster,” Walburga whispers, but her voice lacks conviction, and Riddle merely looks at her, with a face still unspeakably lovely, but somehow distorted, like a wax figure melting in its own glow. 

“You’re mine now,” says Voldemort.


End file.
